The Japan earthquake – what is really important to you?

Family health issues & Japan tsunami

have made me think about what is important in our lives.

Terry the perfectionist

As a perfectionist I’m bad for becoming very focused on the outcome and the details so that I don’t appreciate the journey that life really is.

Don’t see the forest for the trees

It’s so easy to get caught up and frustrated with the little things that aren’t going “right” (the way we expect and want them to go). The deadlines, money and personal possessions start to become the things we focus on and the things that seem most important.

New wave

Then I watched the TV footage of the tsunami sweeping aside buildings, cars and lives. I watched the Japanese people try to cope. Many realizing that most of the possessions that were lost and washed away could be replaced but their family members, friends and loved ones were another story.

Meanwhile back in Canada

The next day I received a call that my mother was taken into hospital in Calgary. When I went down there to visit her she seemed a shadow of the bright cheerful woman who survived breast cancer and loved to go on walks with me in Fish Creek Park.

Things are looking up

She’s been in hospital for almost 2 weeks undergoing all sorts of tests. Now they have determined it is a form of sciatica and they have been able to relieve her pain and start some physio, so things are looking up.

But as my dad, my sister and myself sat beside her bed in Calgary, trying to think of things that might cheer her up, we all came to realize what was truely important.  Like the people in Japan, we were shown that it is our love and our relationships that are what really matters in our lives.

Do your part

So I would encourage you to hug the people who mean a lot to you and don’t be afraid to let them know how much you care about them. Let’s extend that care out to the people of Japan and do what we can to support them.

We are family

While money goes along way to help, our Japanese image consultant friends have told us that the phone calls, notes and emails of support are appreciated immensely,

For donations I have included a link page on CBC which has a list of Canada’s humanitarian agencies that can make sure your donations make a difference.

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Posted by Terry Pithers